The Robert Henri Museum and Art Gallery will hold a ribbon cutting for its new gallery on Saturday, Aug. 16, (Robert Henri Museum and Art Gallery, Courtesy)
COZAD —The Robert Henri Museum and Art Gallery, is pleased to announce that it will be hosting a ribbon cutting ceremony for its
new gallery on Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025 at 10:30 a.m.
The gallery is located at 207 East 9th Street, in Cozad, Nebraska. All of the organization’s facilities – its museum, library and archives and gallery will be open during the day until 5:00 p.m. and refreshments will be served.
The ribbon cutting will begin a new chapter in the museum’s long and storied history. The project will take the institution to an even higher level and make it a national center for preserving and promoting the art and legacy of Robert Henri.
The museum has been making steady progress for almost forty years as it first preserved Henri’s boyhood home in the 1980s and then constructed a nine-hundred square foot gallery to house its growing collection of his art in 2014.
Construction of the new gallery began in the fall of 2023 and was finished in May 2025. The new gallery will be about five thousand square feet in size. It will allow the museum to expand its collection to more than fifty paintings in the future. The new building includes state of the art climate control, fire protection, and security systems and exhibition space. It also includes an outdoor patio area, gift shop, the director’s office and a serving kitchen.
The three-million-dollar expansion was paid for with grants, contributions and a very generous donation and matching commitment from patrons Larry and Tammy Paulsen of two million dollars. Larry and Tammy have made the display of much of the artwork and exhibitions in our gallery possible through donations and loans. Larry’s mother, Shirley Paulsen, was one of the founders of our museum in the early 1980s.
The museum will also be officially opening its new major exhibition: Painter, Teacher and Pioneer: A Journey Through the Life of Robert Henri. It is the first major new exhibit on the internationally known painter in more than thirty years. The exhibit will combine biographical material along with paintings, sketches and information on his students, which numbered one thousand, and his artistic philosophy that he called the Art Spirit.
The exhibition reveals the remarkable array of locations that Henri painted at over his forty-year career.
The museum’s former gallery was converted into a new library and archives building as it is climate controlled and has a sophisticated security system. In addition, the Impact Nebraska artist exhibition will be on display. The museum will continue to serve as the focus of the museum’s interpretative exhibits that tell the story of the Nebraska chapter of Robert Henri’s life along with his family’s connection to Cozad.
The Robert Henri Museum and Art Gallery is a national treasure that is the result of the work of many volunteers, board members and professional staff who have toiled for more than thirty years.
The effort to preserve Robert Henri’s legacy in Cozad started with a small group of people who saw the opportunity to bring recognition to the town that was once home to the acclaimed artist and native son, Robert Henri (then Robert Henry Cozad). This group, led by Shirley
Paulsen, bought and restored the former Hendee Hotel, Henri’s boyhood home.
With local support and generous donations from Cozad and Henri family members, and donors from across the United States, the Robert Henri Museum and Art Gallery’s collection continues to grow. The first Henri painting donated to the museum in 1988 was Portrait of Queen Mariana.
Since then, numerous donations and loans of Henri works have been made. Today the gallery houses the largest display of Robert Henri works, or those attributed to him, in the United States.
The museum’s complex is open from March 1 to December 15, Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information about the museum call 308-784-4343 or visit the museum’s web page at www.roberthenrimuseum.org. To follow the museum’s activities check out its Facebook page.
